Deadly Chile Quake 'Shifted Earth's Axis'

[English Noodles]

The powerful earthquake that killed hundreds of people in Chile on Saturday probably shifted the Earth's axis and made days slightly shorter, a Nasa scientist has said.




Chile and the Andes mountains, as seen from Space Shuttle Columbia in 1994



Richard Gross, a research scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, calculated how much the axis may have changed in position following the the disaster.

More than 700 people died and two million are estimated to have been affected by the 8.8-magnitude tremor and subsequent tsunamis.

The quake, the most powerful to hit the nation in 50 years, sent shockwaves out from the epicentre 70 miles from Chile's second city, Concepcion.

Buildings and roads collapsed and 500,000 homes have been left severely damaged.

Six aid workers died when a plane carrying them to Concepcion crashed.
The team was on its way to help organise accommodation for those left homeless by the disaster.

Soldiers were sent to patrol Concepcion's streets after mobs set fire to shops and started looting them, hindering attempts to rescue survivors.

If the planet's axis did shift by 8cm during the quake, days would have shortened by 1.26 microseconds, Mr Gross calculated.

A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

Earth days are 24 hours long because that is the amount of time it takes the planet to make one full rotation on its axis, so shifting the axis would affect rotation.

The quake shifted the Earth's axis by even more than the 9.1-magnitude tremor off Indonesia that started the deadly tsunami in Asia in 2004, according to Mr Gross.

This was partly because the fault line responsible for the quake in Chile "dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake", he said.

The different angle made Saturday's tremor more effective at moving Earth's mass vertically and shifting the planet's axis, Mr Gross continued.

The 2004 quake in Asia, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused the Earth to move by around 7cm.

It chopped an estimated 6.8 microseconds off the length of a day, Nasa said.

Chile Earthquake 'Shortens Days': Nasa Expert Says Quake Shifted Earth's Axis By 1.26 Microseconds | Strange News | Sky News

[dirtydog]

It chopped an estimated 6.8 microseconds off the length of a day

So, the ice age cometh.....

[TSR2]

f the planet's axis did shift by 8cm during the quake, days would have shortened by 1.26 microseconds, Mr Gross calculated.

Got a feeling that had happened

[English Noodles]

Got a feeling that had happened

Yeh, I tought it was getting dark slightly earlier than is usual.

[Carnwadrick]

and that is why I cut myself shaving??

[blackgang]

I thought that had happened as I awaken at a slightly different time since that quake,, so that is the reason..

[good2bhappy]

day light is still lengthening at this time of the year

[English Noodles]

day light is still lengthening at this time of the year

1.26 microseconds slower than normal, maybe.

[good2bhappy]

my thoughts are how it will effect weather patterns

[dirtydog]

^Less sunlight = less warmth = ice age = we're all gonna die

[larvidchr]

^Less sunlight = less warmth = ice age = we're all gonna die

OHH fuck nowhere to run

[Gerbil]

^^ Thank god for global warming.

[dirtydog]

[bretby]

Has the good professor been on the piss?

[StrontiumDog]

Powerful little bugger wasn't it. A few more of those and well, we might be talking serious numbers, say half a second.

[withnallstoke]

If the day was shortened on one half of the globe, wouldn't the night be lengthened on the other half?

[withnallstoke]

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 150 (2 members and 148 guests) .

??????????? For real????????????

[Takeovers]

If the day was shortened on one half of the globe, wouldn't the night be lengthened on the other half?

The speed of rotation changed. So it is days and nights which are shorter.

Day in this case also has the meaning of one full rotation of the earth so the shortening is for day (light) and night (dark) combined.

Language can be confusing.

[English Noodles]

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 241 (2 members and 239 guests)

[English Noodles]

^^Makes sense.

[Thetyim]

The world now looks like this